Over the next few days, I’ll be reading the book and sharing my notes on what jumps out at me and my quick reflections.My NotesChapter 4 – The Future of Revolution

Every society in the future will experience different forms of protect in which communication technologies are used to organize, mobilize and engage…the community.

Virtual space offers new avenues for dissent and participation.

The anonymity of the Internet and the networked power of communication technologies will provide activists and would-be participants with a new layer of protective insulation that encourages them to continue on.

Digital activism lowers the stakes for would-be protesters, so true leaders will distinguish themselves by taking on physical risks that their virtual supporters cannot or will not…”You cannot storm an interior ministry by mobile phone.”

Revolutionary efforts will be “transnational and inclusive than many previous revolutions.”

Revolutionary helpers – people who develop applications, security tools to share with dissidents [what about Piratebox?], Internet aggregators who use the volume of the crowd to apply pressure and demand attention.

Some will create specialized devices to smuggle into countries with protest movements, handsets that come loaded with encrypted apps that allow users to publish information (texts, photos, videos) without leaving any record on the phone.

The downside of an acceleration in the pace of a movement is that organizations and their ideas, strategies and leaders have a far shorter gestation period.

…what has changed is the will of the people to generate an enormous amount of noise when they disagree with how they are governed.

Regimes adapt their strategy for internet/mobile device protests–they shut down networks. This move can backfire because….

“Hitting one hundred percent of the population on something that everyone thinks is essential [the network], and actually taking it out, triggerered a much more irritated and negative reaction than what the government expected.” Source: Vodafone’s CEO: Vittorio Colao